Relatives from my father’s side of the family (the one with the
convoluted family history) came over from Daet. I ended up getting
appointed official babysitter, my two sisters having escaped from the
job by some unknown means.

Saturday, of course, was quite a busy day for me. Two of my friends
are taking a multimedia class that requires the submission of a
trailer. Naturally, they chose to do the trailer for a game they’re
working on. For that, they needed a rotating video of a girl using the
computer. Guess who ended up volunteering for this no-budget
production? ;) It was a lot of fun. We managed to finish at
midnight. Although Eric and Dennison weren’t completely satisfied with
the video, they figured it would do. I was okay with doing a reshoot
(hooray for phenylethylamine!), but they decided to wrap up.

The next day found me in bed until three. After a quick
discussion and much protest (“What do I know about babysitting? I’m
the youngest in the family!”), it was decided that I would babysit the
kids. Oh joy. So much for a day of quiet e-mail and
conversation… I found out about my task while on the
phone with Eric, and he made me choose between letting him come (but
he’s working on a paper!) and letting him ask Jerome for
reinforcements. I resignedly allowed him to go and inform Jerome as
long as his message didn’t imply “Sacha insists”. It had to be more of
a “Sacha wouldn’t really mind.” Important difference! It was, after
all, Sunday, a normally off-limits day.

Jerome came while we were playing Monopoly on the roofdeck. He did
quite well – a flurry of trades helped all of us get monopolies, but
luck would have all of us landing on his properties! Then the
kids decided to start a pillowfight in the room on the
roofdeck… which of course led to my hiding under some pillows and
claiming non-combatant status. Arko (one of the young girls)
seemed to have been particularly picking on Jerome, and all of them
even ganged up on him and tickled him. =) He was a good sport, though,
even entertaining them with (of all things) soap opera
impersonations. That was probably brought on by Arko’s insistence that
I was married to someone in the States and that I had children
already…

Arko apparently decided to be my chaperone, insisting on always
interposing herself between me and Jerome. It was kinda funny,
even. She banned us from winking at each other, talking in another
language (Japanese was _very_ useful, even with my limited
vocabulary), and even talking in ‘advanced’ English (jargon was also
quite useful).

Still, I can say that I rather enjoyed taking care of the kids. We
survived, barely, although I’m not sure if the stuffed toys did.
Now it’s back to work and school and everything else.

Hello, everyone! I’m Sacha Chua, and I’m here to talk about embeddedsystem design from the developer’s point of view.What _is_ embedded computing, anyway? It helps to define it incontrast to personal computers, which we’re all familiar with.

PC/embedded system comparison

General use

Personal computers are intended for general use. They can run a widerange of applications – games, business apps, that sort of thing.

Specific function

Embedded systems, on the other hand, are typically designed for asingle purpose. Think of a calculator, for example, or the logic invending machines. (Of course, some embedded systems are becoming moregeneral now, like personal digital assistants a).

OS, apps

Personal computers

System

Keyboard/mouse/monitor

On PCs, you can usually assume that someone

Different input/output

Easy to dev or change programs

Infrequently updated

Challenges

User needs / expectations

Although crashes and data loss seem to be part of our everydaycomputing experience, people expect embedded systems to be reliable.Imagine an embedded system that crashes! What if your phone crashedand had to be rebooted all the time? People expect features,reliability, and all for a low price.

Tight space and memory constraints

Development tools

Development process

One of the things about embedded development is that the process is alittle bit longer. It’s not the usual edit, compile, run cycle. It’sedit, compile, burn to flash, run.

Architectural quirks

And of course if you go into embedded development, you’ll probablyhave to deal with different architectures. For example, you’ll learnabout the quirks of conditional ARM.

I’m not really sure where to begin demonstrating what I’ve been
working on. Unlike the other groups who are creating something new
and easy to explain, I’ve been spending the last few months exploring
a different way of life. My contribution to the computer science body
of knowledge isn’t some killer application or breakthrough theory, but
rather experiments, documentation and incremental improvements.

My project is about wearable computing. I aim to show that it can be
done inexpensively, using only off-the-shelf equipment and free
software. To that end, I have been gradually adapting Emacs to
wearable computing needs. Most of what I am demonstrating is not my
code, but the use of it is uncommon even in the Emacs and Emacspeak
communities, and so my contributions have mostly been in the form of
documentation and patches. I have also become the official maintainer
of planner.el, a text-based organizer for Emacs.

Since I’ve based my project off Emacspeak, a lot of things were
instantly accessible. For example, I can easily check the time and
date by pressing C-e t. Emacspeak also allows me to work with
practically all modules in Emacs. Because this foundation is already
quite good, I decided to focus on documenting its setup, demonstrating
its usability and writing or improving upon Emacs features.

Notes

I have been using this to organize my notes, although in class I tend
to turn off sound and use the keyboard in order to keep up with the
teacher. School notes are organized by day.

Mail

Other information

Ateneo library books

More work to be done

Beautiful documentation =)
get a serial to USB adapter so that I can use my phone again.
solve APM kernel problems
get wireless to work reliably, probably via cantenna

I’ve been reading up on blogging, since I want to get a firm
grip on the kind of software I’d like. Yes, I’m not supposed to be
thinking about it right now, but I am. So, what am I looking for?

I seem to be looking for a strange mix between wiki and blog – a WikiBlog. I want
it to be easy for people to jump to today’s entry, and I want it to be
easy for them to look at all the pages I’d edited for the day. I want
to make it easy for people to subscribe to pages they’re interested in
and to have the day’s work delivered to them in their mailbox at, say,
midnight the next day.

Bah. Forget them. ;) I want something that can organize information
for myself. For the most part, planner mode and emacs-wiki
suffice. But I also want to be able to make this information usable to
other people, and that means formatting it nicely.

At just 2.9 lbs, the $799 Lindows Mobile PC is a featherweight, but it
weighs in with such features as LindowsOS, a 933mhz VIA processor,
256MB RAM, USB 2.0, Firewire, Ethernet, and a crisp 12.1″ TFT display,
plus a PCMCIA slot to add even more functionality such as wireless
networking. No other computer is as ideally suited for carry-around
mobility as the affordable, under 3lb, Lindows Mobile PC. You’ll find
yourself taking it with you everywhere!

If I ever get one of those, you can bet that I’ll install Debian on it
really quickly. But the page makes no mention of battery life, and I’m
not sure if the lower price is due to the lack of Windows tax (but it
can’t be that big!) or the lack of a long battery. It seems too thin
for a major battery…

Pfft. Got locked out of the dorm. The guard doesn’t seem to be in the
lobby, so I guess she’s walking around inspecting the room. That’s
what I get for stubbornly trying to track down that pesky PlannerMode
and EmacsWiki interaction problem. For some reason, my
emacs-publish-batch isn’t doing the right thing. I’ll worry about that
over the weekend. But I’m only a minute late…

I seem to be developing a sore throat, having overused my voice
today. I hope it will clear up in time for my talk on open source this
March 7. At the very least, I am learning how to speak in front of
small crowds… small crowds. Such a strange phrase.

My eternal thanks go to the inventor(s) of foldback clips. They are
absolutely wonderful, and have helped me impose some sort of order on
the reams and reams of Philosophy readings that – it turns out – I
must have properly catalogued and annotated by Monday. We’re not just
talking about the last set of readings, mind you, but all the readings
our esteemed Philosophy teacher has ever given. I hope he doesn’t ask
me to talk about the pages I used for scratch. I will bring them in
that little rolling cart I normally use for clothes; I suppose that
would be quite a statement.

After philosophy class ended, a number of my classmates asked me to
send my notes to them. Apparently, the fact that I get
near-transcriptions of Fr. David’s speeches (verbatim if I’m not
distracted and he pauses often). I am surprised to see that my notes
have reached 256K. I sent them a URL to my planner-managed site athttp://richip.dhs.org/~sachac/notebook/wiki/Ph104.html, of course.

Fidelity is something we know from our everyday lives. We cannot
separate it from faith. In fact, we call fidelity faithfulness. So we
know what it means to be faithful to someone. Our fidelity is not
about our faith in others, but about their faith in us, and
faithfulness is keeping our promise to them and living up to their
trust.

We also know what faithlessness is. Some people here might be from
broken families. Some people here might have been betrayed by
friends. We know what it’s like to break a promise and to let someone
down. That’s sin. We know how it destroys things. We know how cheating
on someone destroys our relationship with them, even if they never
find out.

So we understand what Christian faith tells us about faithfulness, and
we understand why we need to pray for strength. Many people pray that
they are given the strength and the understanding to be more faithful
to other people, so they can be better friends, better children,
better people.

Fidelity is not being stubborn or thinking just one thing. The only
thing constant in life is change, and part of being faithful is
adapting to change, not forcing other people or yourself to stay the
same. We make mistakes, and we should learn from them.

We might not be aware of these mistakes. For example, racism might not
obvious to people who are racists. They think it’s only natural.
Fidelity means recognizing that we shouldn’t just do what we’ve always
done, but we should think about it carefully.

Very, very, very rarely, fidelity might even mean realizing that
you’ve made the wrong commitment. For example, you might be committed
to getting high grades, which is not a bad thing. But if you start
cheating just to keep up your grades, something is wrong. That is why
we need to periodically reexamine ourselves and our commitments.

That happens far less than another, more serious problem. Our problem
is that we give up too quickly. People break up over the smallest
things. People fight and separate for very selfish reasons. Fidelity
requires strength. It requires will. That’s why we pray for the
strength to be better people – to be better sons and daughters, to be
better friends.

The bottom line is that fidelity is faithfulness, so we cannot talk
about fidelity without talking about faith. We’re not just talking
about our faith in others, but also of their faith in us. This is why
you feel terrible when you backstab a friend or cheat on a spouse. You
have betrayed their trust. You have broken your promises. Sin is like
that. God has faith in us. He knows that we can be good people. When
we sin, we betray that trust. That’s why we pray for the strength to
be faithful.

I think I’ve gotten a callus on my right hand from those pullback clips. Marvelous invention, they are. If I’ve learned nothing else from philosophy class, at least I’ve learned a little more about organizing paper. Look – I even tried to make sure the width fit the text, although I seem to have bought too few 0.75″ clips and too many 1.25″ ones.

Chris Haravata mailed me asking for a landline number so that he can get in touch with me. I wonder what’s up. Checking out his blog, I find out that he also does intro computer science classes… goodie!

My mother strongly feels that I shouldn’t go to the party later, since
my finals are next week after all. I thought about it carefully and
while I think I _will_ be able to manage the workload, it’s wise to have
some breathing room, and it’s unwise to tick parents off. I feel bad
about not being able to keep my promise to go, and I realize I erred
in committing in the first place. I was looking forward to dressing
up, although I must admit that I felt uneasy about dedicating a whole
night to, well, Japanese pop music and anime – things I’m not really
into. A quiet dinner at home would have been more effective for
objective #2, which was meeting Jerome, but then again work should
come first – and I’d have felt guilty about not working, too…

The strawberries are nothing spectacular – a bit on the old side, with
strange dark spots – but hey, they’re strawberries. =) Having relieved
them of their leafs and assorted mushy parts, I proceeded to fashion a
shaker out of an old egg cup. Looks like it works – I get nice, evenly
coated sugared strawberries. Still, to be in a country where
strawberries are fresh and firm and sweet…

Only one ream of paper to go. My highlighter looks like it’s running a
bit low on ink. I want to stock up on these. These and
foldback clips. More of the foldback clips. The smallest kind – those
are a bit more useful. What am I doing? I’m dreaming about
organizational tools.

I am beginning to realize just how wonderful speech is. I’ve added
dtk-speak to erc-insert-pre-hook, and I can listen to #linuxhelp while
browsing through Arendt. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing it, but it’s so
much fun…

Mmm, looks like I’m helping judge. =) March 3 and 4 are required.
We’ll get the papers now, so we have until the 28th to read and rate
the papers. On the 28th, submit the results to the office and the
chair of the committee. That’s when you get the 5 finalists. Everybody
reads all the papers except those of their own
department. Undergraduates only need to read undergraduate papers. Whew!

Some of the problems come up if you don’t know the significance of the
paper. Someone’s supposed to say why the paper is significant,
anyway. It could be very important work, after all. It should be
important to the field, not just relevant to the society. The
importance to the field of foobar is important. Whether it advances
the field.

Bio

Vivian Panes

Jared Billena

Karen Villarante

Chem

Nina Rojas

Agnes Funa

Kitkat Santiago

Math

Nael Cabal

Debbie Bautista

Ryan Liwanag

ES

Raquel Unson

| Hernando

ECCE

Lui Agustin

| Pocholo Paskola

DISCS

Pablo Manalastas

Jela Bathan

Sacha Chua

Phys

Jerrold Garcia

Ian Vega

Kendra Castillo

Chair has a copy of the guidelines.
March 3: Undergraduate presentation.

Fr. Padua was talking about one of the reflection papers. Apparently,
he remembers me because of the high-tech way I do things. He said:

“‘What do you do if streetchildren run up to you on the street? …
You could give them a card telling them to go to the nearest
foundation, but then you realize they might not know how to read.’ It
started out so incredibly! You wonder why she started talking about
tech…”

“Umm, sir, is that Sacha Chua?”

“Why, yes. Sandra Jean.”

He went on to say that it was a wonderful example of interdisciplinary
work, and that it showed that Theology didn’t have to be done for Theology’s sake only.

A complete, mature faith grows out of and depends on doctrine, morals and worship, drawing from Sacred Scripture, tradition and human experience. Through commitment, we fully involve ourselves in our
relationships to others. God’s grace allows us to freely respond to
His love, illumining our conscience, Creed and worship.

Although we have the capacity to do wrong, we are under the moral obligation to do the right thing. Conscience applies universal moral norms to particular situations and helps us discern what the right
thing to do is.

Sin is not merely a transgression of divine law. It corrupts our spiritual life and cuts us off from God. It affects not only us but also the people around us. Forgiveness is not an erasure of our sins, but an act of love by God for us.

The Creed is not a formula to be simply recited. It is a list of beliefs that unite us as a community in our Christian life.

There are no substitutes for the Sacraments as a way for us to deepen our faith. This is how God chose to make Himself present to us and how He wants us to learn about Him. Sacraments also unite us
with the rest of the Church.

Programmers are often given a large system they’ve not seen before, built by
people they don’t know, touched by many people since, documented sketchily if
at all. They’re told to improve it. Their task might be to fix a bug, add a
feature, or complete a refactoring. They are under time pressure, so they
need to minimize the total time spent learning and the time spent improving.

In this workshop, we will share techniques and approaches for understanding
enough about a lot of code in not much time. We are concerned not just with
speed, but also with confidence: how can you know you’ve made an improvement,
not made the system worse?

Apparently, a short black velvet dress and a brilliant red-and-yellow
obi-style belt is sufficiently unusual that it draws comments from the
other geeks in the room, who are probably rather bemused that I am
acting like a girl and actually _accessorizing._ Amazing.

Notes:
– 1. Those who are not candidates for graduation must attend the plenary sessions (Please inquire about the schedule from the CS department). The grades of these students can still be significantly changed by the requirements given during these sessions.
– 2. Those whose names are not in the list of exempted students can request their current standing via e-mail: jonjon@mathsci.math.admu.edu.ph

CS197. Senior Thesis / Project Presentation
Schedule of defense will be on
March 3. 2003 from 8:00 AM to 3:30 PM
Requirements:
Each group will be given 30 minutes for the presentation and defense proper.
1. Final paper (printed out)
2. Soft copy of project (CD)
Kindly sign up at the department